


Pieces of myself

by Ravensoul93



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Dreams vs. Reality, Hope, Horror, Hurt, Reality, Time Travel, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:46:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravensoul93/pseuds/Ravensoul93
Summary: This is just a random attempt on my side to try and clear my head of things weighing me down or keeping my head going in circles. I have to admit this might turn out as depressing but I am sure there are people out there feeling the same and maybe you feel not that alone. (Strange as it might sometimes seem, none of this is fiction. Those are things really happening and not something I made up as much as I wish sometimes.)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	1. Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> For this I have to thank a very good friend of mine for encouraging me to actually publish this.  
> As fictional as this might seem, I am sorry but this nightmare is real. Nothing I made up to seem cool or anything. It is haunting me for years now, never changing, no escaping.  
> Don't read if you are not comfortable with stuff like that and keep it to yourself if you think I am nuts. I shared this to deal with it and maybe there are people who know this sort of personal horror show.

This is something that keeps me awake most of the nights of late again. A reoccurring nightmare if you want to put it like that. One that always comes back whenever I feel utterly helpless and things start spinning out of my control again. One I cannot escape and I cannot wake up from until it is over, trust me, I tried to wake up.

I don’t know if it is just a very vivid dream or, if you believe in stuff like that, memories of a life long past. I know I am a woman. How? For one I am wearing some kind of linen dress and I caught glimpses of myself.  
It is always the same scenery. It is cold, snow is painting the outskirts of the forest around me white and seems to drown out every sound. It is near sunset and I am out to gather wood for starting a fire in our small house. I am walking for some time in complete silence, picking up pieces of wood here and there.  
I am reaching a small clearing before the trees start growing closer, starting to block out the remaining light. There is a soft mist gathering around as the sun begins to set, slowly thickening, and reminding me of worms digging their way through rotten flesh. I bend down to pick up another piece when I hear it. A branch cracking under too much weight ripping through the silence. I hesitate to turn around, afraid what I might find. As I do my eyes widen in fear. The mist seems to be drawn into one spot between to old oaks. Getting thicker and darker by the second. Yellow eyes glowing, reflecting the light and watching my every move.  
It comes closer. Emerging from the dark. Still this beast seems to consist of darkness itself.  
A wolf. Black as night and almost starved to death. It’s bearing its teeth at me, snarling and saliva dripping hot into the snow, burning holes into the white. I can’t move. I know I should but I can’t. I am frozen in my spot as the beast draws closer.  
When I finally am able to move I feel the wood clattering to the ground provoking a sharp and hungry bark. I take a hesitant step back, instantly catching my foot on some stray root. The snow cascades all around me as I fall to the ground with a shocked gasp.  
The wolf follows me in that second. With so much force I wouldn’t have thought possible left in that ragged body, he instantly shoves me deeper into the snow underneath me. Before I can lift my arms to protect myself he lunges forward, digging his sharp teeth into my throat.  
I feel hot blood on my cold skin, my blood. I want to scream, I can’t. His canines have ripped through my vocal cords and my throat is filling up with fluid. I know I am dying, I can feel the life draining from my body. I can feel my limbs go cold. My sight narrows down to those merciless yellow orbs staring into my soul.  
Only when the world blacks out and I can literally feel my heart stop, I wake up.

This dream only changes when things take a turn for the better. There is a white wolf appearing before the black one pounces on me. Standing over me like a mother protecting her pup. Baring its teeth to the black beast, telling it to back off. Ready to defend me with everything. When the black one doesn't retreat the white one strikes. Overpowering the black one and killing it. The moment those blue eyes settle on mine I know I am safe and I can wake up.


	2. Trapped within my own mind

First of all, to understand what I am talking about I should explain a little of the background story of all of this. I am suffering from depressions. I know that it is a disease that is more common than most people care to notice or want to admit. I am not aiming for sympathy. As I stated in the description, this is my way of dealing with my issues. Writing has always been my way of dealing with everything in my life but actually sharing it is new to me.

Drowning. That’s what it feels like some days. Those are the days I don’t know how I keep going, wonder why I can’t just accept defeat and stop struggling so hard. Those are the days I no longer know what keeps me fighting so hard.  
It isn’t even the big incidents that have me crashing so hard. It is the small things. Forgetting the laundry in the washing machine, forgetting something at the supermarket, forgetting to call someone back… That alone is enough to throw me over the edge, when I have already been waking up with the feeling something would happen. When my day already started like that, something as trivial as the forgetting such small things seems like the end of the world to me. I start excusing for things out of control and try to justify every single decision on that day. I swear to myself everything else I will do perfectly but of course the harder you try the more you are bound to fail.  
And that’s what has my head going in circles. I keep thinking about that one small thing I failed over and over again, something I would have shrugged off two years ago. If my mind would stop there I would be good. We all know it is not that simple. My mind starts throwing random things I failed at me, starts accusing me of things I know are not true but I cannot stop them from revolving in my head. That I am not good enough, not bright enough, not able to accomplish anything on my own, that I am always so dependent on the help of others, that I am a burden to everyone around me…

I know those things are not true on my good days. On the bad days I listen to those lies even if there is this tiny voice in the back of my head, screaming I shouldn’t listen. But I do listen. I go from thought A all the way to Z and start all over again. It is a circle I cannot escape. I am trapped in my own head and can’t escape. The faster the thoughts keep going, the more I start crying. Until the point my sight narrows and I feel like I can’t breathe anymore. I am falling into a full on panic attack. Sad thing is this mostly happens when I am home alone. When I started having the panic attacks I wasn’t able to call for help. My phone could have lied in front of me, ready to hit the call button and I wouldn’t have been able to call anyone. That has gotten better by now. I realize the panic is starting to take over and I call someone I know understands what is happening.  
I am not able to call my boyfriend in those moments, though I know he would help me the best he can. It is just that something keeps me from reaching out to him, because I have the feeling he is already dealing with so much of my issues I cannot bother him with that.  
If the panic is just starting it is enough to talk to me. To get me talking about random stuff. What I had for breakfast, what colour my shirt has… Stuff like that which takes my mind somewhere else.  
When my boyfriend is actually around when I am starting to panic, he mostly catches the first signs right away and distracts me instantly. There was only one time in January he was confronted with the full force of what I am dealing with. It had been a real bad day, some payment had gone wrong and I had to deal with that and just a lot of bad luck and things out of my control I had to somehow set right. I had five mild panic attacks already that day until I got back home. I actually had to make a stop at a friends’ house because of the panic. When I got home I was exhausted and went straight to the kitchen to get dinner ready. I heard my boyfriend call his mother, telling her none of that days’ events had been my fault and everything was alright now. Despite us having a real close relationship I panicked the second he asked her if she wanted to talk to me for a second. I almost screamed at him across the apartment that I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I really don’t recall what happened afterwards, I only remember the panic hitting me full force and crouching down in front of the stove, trying to somehow get air into my lungs. I don’t know how long he tried to reach me, what got me out of it was my boyfriend yelling at me to snap out of it.  
There is nothing worse than that look of utter helplessness and regret in the face of the person you love most. He just pulled me out of the kitchen and put me to bed. Telling me it was enough, that I needed to rest. I was so exhausted I slept the second my head hit the pillow.

I think for most people who have never experienced this themselves it is hard to imagine what it feels like to be so helpless. To know your mind is telling you lies but being unable to break out of it unless someone pulls you from those thoughts. It isn’t any easier for those close to you, they are the ones trying to pick up the pieces, to somehow find a way to help even if they don’t know how.  
“ _Hey, look on the bright side. You got so much good in your life, just don’t take it so hard _.” I came to hate statements like that. It is as helpful as telling someone who is drowning to just swim. It is not like we (those suffering from depressions) don’t see the good things in our life. We see them, we recognize them. We just don’t value them as much as the bad stuff anymore. It is like looking at something through a glass, it is there but it is not the same as looking at it without a barrier in between, that keeps you from actually touching it. At least that is how it feels like for me…  
On my good days I am appreciating those things more now. I am thankful for so many things, I maybe took for granted before getting sick or realizing I am sick. On the good days I know what I accomplished on my own, that I am not useless, that I am not a burden. I remember who I am and how strong I am to still be here. To not have given in to the easy way out, even if it is the harder way on some days.__


	3. All just make-believe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't judge anybody on their religious believes. There is no right or wrong here because faith is something as individual as one's fingerprint.

Faith. I have been thinking about it a lot lately. We all believe in something. Some in God, some in Allah, Buddha, Shiva, science, one’s own strength or nothing at all. In the end it doesn’t really matter what we believe as long as it gets us through the day and nobody gets hurt in the process.  
No matter where we are from, most of us learn from the second they understand words that there is good and there is evil. Quite simple, is it not? But as we get older we often realize it is not really that simple as plain good and evil. There are just about a million shades of grey in between.

For me it started off just as simple as that. In Germany Christianity is quiet the common faith and so it wasn’t that surprising that from the beginning I was brought up to believe in God. Learning about the difference between good and evil, Christian kindergarten, going to church on Christmas Eve, being baptized, religion in school and so on. Basically being told from the beginning that there is a God and you are somehow expected to believe in him.  
I don’t want to criticize the concept of God, I just don’t believe in him anymore, but I don’t judge anyone if they do.  
First I really believed it all. Heaven and hell. God and the devil. Good and evil. As I grew older I developed an interest for other religion and believes. I had always been quite fascinated by the Vikings and old Germans and their lore. At some point I stopped reading about it for there were other things more important, like school and so on.  
The real game changer was what happened when I was 14, short after having my confirmation. My mother got diagnosed with cancer, lymph gland cancer to be exact. I don’t really know what happened that moment, I just know I lost faith. I stopped believing in God. I couldn’t anymore. This just entity I was brought up to believe in just didn’t exist anymore and if he did he just didn’t care. Some people might have found strength in their faith, me it pushed away from believing. I was angry and disappointed, I refused to go to church anymore. For my mother it wasn’t easy to except that I just stopped believing (we were never overly religious but still believed), her argument always being I had my confirmation just for the money, which wasn’t true.  
We fought a lot about it. But as I said, I just couldn’t understand how this merciful God could condemn a woman with three children and having never done something bad to possibly die. Some would say it was a way to test her faith (which I honestly think is bullshit).

Knowing what I know today cancer doesn’t scare me that much anymore. But back then it was the end of the world. For my fourteen year old self cancer was a death sentence, apart from that I was struggling with puberty, school and I had to younger brothers and a father who came home late and was gone early in the morning. It didn’t help much that the topic of cancer was something we just didn’t talk about. My mother started treatment and in the end she won.  
During that time I started reading more about Norse mythology and all revolving around it again. It kept my mind occupied and at some point I realized it helped me to deal with the situation. I started believing. As weird as it might seem, but up until today I still believe in those old gods, in Valhalla, Ragnarok… It gave me strength where the Christian faith failed me. I came to believe what my mother went through was her way of proofing herself worthy of Valhalla, it was her fight.  
Believing in those pagan gods seemed natural to me, as our ancestors believed in them until Christianity was implemented as the common faith. I found proof of it all around me, it explained so many things I couldn’t explain any other way. After all it is the personification of nature. The elements even creation in itself is explained by it.  
It took my parents a long time to except that I really believed those old tales to be true and I think in some way it was when we started to drift apart.

Everyone knows that feeling to sometimes not belong. I always had the feeling I was trapped in the wrong time and wrong place when I was younger. I studied the concept of fate and destiny a lot (personified by the Norns and them deciding such). I found my own definition of it. I believe there are certain points in our lives decided by the Norns, we need to pass them and there is no way around it. But along the way there are paths and crossroads where we decide on our own which path we take. Destiny is a little more complicated for it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to achieve something in particular. It can be a person you are supposed to meet, something you need to do or achieve, something that only affects you, something that affects everyone. Sometimes we don’t achieve that goal. May it be because someone else interfered, by for example killing us before reaching our goal, or we are simply born into the wrong time. Even if we don’t know it, our soul does and it keeps calling out.  
I myself came to believe this is not my first live on this planet, that I have been here before. I know that it seems crazy but so is believing in a God we don’t really know of he (or she) even exists at all. I used to have dreams so vivid I could taste the blood running down my face, feel the smoke of a fire in my throat, feel steel cutting my flesh in battle. I don’t know if those are memories of a past life or just my mind going haywire. I just can’t explain any other way why you sometimes meet people who are complete strangers and you just know them, why you sometimes recognize places you have been to never before or have seen pictures of it, why you sometimes got the feeling someone is watching you though you are alone in your apartment.

I believe in angels and demons, good and evil. I think there is so much more than we can grasp and understand. As children we are more open to those things. We just lose that ability because there is so much input in our everyday life that we need to limit our senses or we would go insane with overstimulation. We lose the ability to really see the world, not just as it is but what lies beyond. Children believe in monsters even when they are proofed there are none. Simply because we don’t see them doesn’t mean they are not there. Maybe I really am insane for believing such things. Maybe it is all just make-believe. I believe it not to be, to be part of my reality.


End file.
